As is well known to those practiced in the printing arts, imposition is the positioning of pages onto sheets of media. In general, sheets are imposed along one of two routes. One route is fully automated but lacks the flexibility that is sometimes required for certain jobs. The other route is almost completely manual in which case flexibility is provided by a skilled operator.
Documents with fold out pages are a type of job often needing manual imposition by a skilled operator. The reason is that a fold out page is longer than the regular pages in a document. For example, the regular pages can be destined for an 8.5′×11′ saddle stitched document. The regular pages can be printed onto 11″×17″ sheets with two pages per sheet side and both sheet sides being printed. As such, the imposition is four pages per sheet. Automated current imposition programs can handle the regular page imposition.
The fold out pages, however, can not be printed using the same imposition as the regular pages. This is typically handled by using an exception sheet. An exception sheet is one requiring special handling. A skilled operator can impose the exception page in many ways.
FIG. 6 illustrates a sheet 601 printed with a fold-out page. The sheet 601 has one size 1 page 602 and one size 2 page 603. The size 1 page 602 is a regular page. The size 2 page 603 is a fold out page. A stitch line 604 indicates where the sheet can be folded and bound. A fold line 605 indicates where the fold out page is folded. When bound, a document is sized as if it contains only regular pages. The fold out page, however, can be folded out to reveal a larger page. The larger page is often used for graphics or illustrations.
Printers and printing engines are machines, often quite large, that apply ink patterns to the sheets. Many printers are also capable of folding and binding sheets as well. For example, a Xerox 4110 can print and then automatically fold the fold out page. Systems and methods for automatically imposing the regular pages and the fold out pages of a document are needed.